


If Wishes Were

by Deannie



Category: The Real Ghostbusters
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-01-13
Updated: 2003-01-13
Packaged: 2018-02-07 17:16:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1907307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I said something like 'sometimes I wish they'd never started this damn business.'"<br/>"Well, that was stupid." Ray's quiet comment drew an involuntary chuckle from Peter, but the redhead's tone was deadly serious. "You should never make wishes, Winston. . . . Wishes aren't ever what you want them to be, you know?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Originally published in_ A Small Circle of Friends #8 _published by[Neon Rainbow Press](http://www.neonrainbowpress.com/index.htm)_  
>  A retread of the BTVS episode "The Wish."

It couldn't be happening again. Not again.  


Too many times, he'd watched it all go wrong. Demons, ghosts, warehouses, skyscrapers. It didn't matter what, and it didn't matter where. All that mattered was that, once again, half the team was left waiting.  


"Why don't they tell us anything?"  
Winston turned to his partner and sighed, taking in Ray's blood-mussed uniform and nervous hands. He tossed out the requisite platitude--"They'll tell us when they know something, Ray"--and clasped his own hands firmly in his lap. God, he was sick of this. If he closed his eyes, he honestly couldn't say whether he'd see a flashback of today's nightmare bust or a thousand others they'd been through in the last eleven years. It just never seemed to end.  


This time, it had been Egon and Peter who went down, but it was always someone. Ray was in the ER only a month ago, his arm ripped out of its socket by the pull of a Class Seven hellbent on destruction. Winston himself still sported the scar from his own tumble down the stairs a week ago, the work of a vicious Class Five.  


Giving up sitting as a bad job, he rose, meeting Ray's anxious look with a vow to find coffee. Not that he wanted the caffeine--sure as hell didn't need it, as wired as he was from trying to stop the flow of blood from Egon's leg. And all the while, he was hoping Peter was unconscious instead of comatose, his head wound merely one of what seemed a dozen concussions instead of a skull fracture. Of course, Pete had had one of those before, too. That the man was still functioning after the number of knocks he'd taken was little short of remarkable.  


Still, foraging for caffeine gave him something to do--something that didn't involve sitting around waiting to find out if their luck would hold again. But how long could it hold, really? Winston wondered glumly, as he walked into the cafeteria, stepping up to the coffee machine in the corner.  


"Bad night?"  


The soft caring question came from a tall, leggy nurse--just the kind Peter would want looking after him. She smiled at Winston's surprise, and gestured to the coffee cup now overflowing in front of him. He hastily turned off the spigot, grabbing a napkin to sop up his mess.  


"I've had better," he admitted, sipping at the burning liquid. He snorted hopelessly. "But I guess I've had worse, too."  


She nodded her understanding, her long brown curls framing sympathetic blue eyes. "I get a lot of that." She shrugged at his curious look, claiming her own coffee and walking with him to the checkout. They moved, by mutual agreement, to a quiet table near the back of the room. Normally, Winston would have hurried back to Ray, but tonight, he was just too tired to be strong for anyone anymore.  


"Who's in?" she asked quietly, sipping at her own brew. "Family member?"  


He shook his head, then stopped abruptly. "I guess you could say that, yeah."  


"Hey!" she exclaimed suddenly, as if looking at him for the first time. "You're one of those Ghostbusters! I recognize the jumpsuit." She sighed at his weary nod. "That must be a really hard job, huh? I mean, you guys seem to--"  


"Spend a hell of a lot of time here?" he finished for her. He grinned ruefully. "Yeah, well . . . I guess it goes with the job."  


"Not something I'd choose," she offered. "A job that dangerous."  


He looked into his coffee, hoping it would supply the answers. "Usually, it's great," he admitted after a moment. "Sometimes it just gets the better of us. At least for a while." He straightened painfully. "Still, the work needs doing."  


"But why? I mean, ghosts are everywhere, right? You can't bust all of them."  


He grinned. "Don't think Ray wouldn't like to try," he warned her. The thought brought a deep sigh. "Hell, I guess we just gotta do what we can, you know? Try to keep the balance."  


She sat with him in silence for a few minutes, and he looked up, caught by the elaborate Celtic knot of silver that hung from her neck. "Nice pendant," he said quietly.  


She smiled, reaching up to finger it. "It's a family heirloom." He continued gazing at it absently, and she chuckled, pulling the chain over her head and holding the charm out to him. "Take a closer look, if you like."  


He took it, running gentle fingers over the complex metalwork.  


She returned to their original subject abruptly. "So, I guess you like the job, huh? Warts and all?"  


He shrugged, still fingering the pendant. "Yeah. But sometimes, I wish they'd never started the damn business--wish I'd never gotten involved."  


"Done."  


The cold ring to her voice shocked him into looking up at her, and for a second, he saw a demon in her place.  


And then his world turned black.  


* * * * * * *  


"This is no place for sleeping, you idiot!" Peter's voice, hard and angry, jolted him out of his stupor, and he looked up in shock, to find. . .  


Well, he didn't know exactly what he'd found. It was Peter--the same rakish brown hair, same green eyes, same lean features--but a Peter that was cold and almost . . . vicious. He wore clothes that had seen better days and sported a long scar across his forehead, one Winston had never seen before.  


"What are you, insane?"  


His mind translated the words, but he didn't have a ready answer. Peter was lying in a hospital bed, unconscious, maybe worse . . . He sure as hell wasn't crouched in front of Winston like a bad extra from a war movie.  


Huh. War movie? It kind of felt like that, actually. Winston levered himself up to crouch next to Peter and looked around. They were in a bombed out shell that might once have been a hotel lobby, but the sounds from outside would be more at home in the Netherworld than this lousy excuse for a Motel 6.  


"Egon? Come in, Egon."  


Peter was talking into a small radio, and Winston looked down to see a rough, almost skeletal, proton rifle in Peter's hands. He shook his head in confusion.  


"I'm at the Exchange station, Peter," Egon's voice came through the radio's tinny speaker. "It looks clear so far. Where are you?"  


"Over at Dickson Arms," Peter barked back. "Wanna get your blond butt over here, or am I gonna have to come after you?"  


Winston watched his friend, looking for some sign of humor in his eyes, amazed to find only cold jade. It was like looking into his LT's face during a firefight. The parallel chilled his blood more thoroughly than the distant howl of what his mind instantly tagged as terror dogs.  


"On my way." Egon's no-nonsense reply struck him as well, and Winston tried to get his bearings. The last thing he clearly remembered was waiting in the hospital. . .  


"So, you have a problem getting a room at the Carlton, or are you just naturally suicidal?"  


Peter's rough query brought him back to the matter at hand--whatever that matter was.  


"Where's Ray?" Winston asked suddenly.  


Peter's eyes narrowed with a suspicion Winston hadn't seen from him in more than ten years. "Who?"  


"Ray Stantz?" He said the words slowly, blowing out his breath in frustration at his friend's blank look. "Pete, what the hell's wrong with you?"  


A terror dog howled loudly outside--as if it had caught its prey--and Peter grabbed Winston’s shoulder roughly. "Look buddy, I don't know who this Ray guy is, or who you think I am, or even who _you_ are. If you want to stay alive, keep your ass down and follow my lead, okay?" He grabbed his radio again. "Spengler, that better not have been you getting eaten by Fluffy."  


"I'm undamaged--for now." Egon's reply came so quickly and with such reassurance that Winston knew that, whatever else had happened, at least Pete and Egon were still partners. They cared too much not to be, cold and calculating manners aside.  


Peter sagged just slightly in relief, and Winston put a hand over the one on his shoulder. "Pete, it's me--Winston."  


His friend turned those cold eyes on him again, and Winston watched them soften in confusion. "Do I know you?" Peter looked him up and down, taking in the uniform with a cynical eye. "Didn't you used to work the carnie when I was a kid?"  


Winston shook his head in amazement. "Winston, Pete . . . Zed? Your partner?"  


Peter's eyes lost their warmth. "Only partner I've got is a whole lot taller than you, buddy."  


A terror dog howled again in the distance and Winston's head jerked up, his hands instinctively grabbing for a thrower that wasn't there. Peter noticed, and relaxed a fraction. "What group are you with?"  


Winston just stared. "Group?"  


Peter didn't seem to hear the confusion in his voice and continued musing, his eyes always roving the area. "Brooklyn 5 is toast . . . You from Harlem? The 12, maybe?" He raised his rifle as a rustling sound pierced the darkness. "I figured Gozer wiped you guys out long ago."  


"Gozer?" Winston couldn't help the volume as he stared at his friend in shock. What the hell was this? _The Twilight Zone_?  


Pete's eyes narrowed again, and his rifle started to drift toward Winston's chest. "Okay, pal," he whispered angrily, "how 'bout you start explaining yourself. And I do mean right now."  


"Peter!"  


Winston relaxed at Egon's call, as Peter pulled his rifle back up to cover his partner, who made his way quickly through the rubble to their position. Winston didn't have a clue what was going on, but at least, with Egon here, they could start to figure it out. One look at the new arrival had him tensing again. Whoever that was, it wasn't Egon.  


The man had long hair, but instead of the elaborate curl that marked the physicist's look, this man sported a thick ponytail that ran halfway down his back, doing nothing to hide an even thicker, ugly scar that ran from his left ear halfway across his neck before disappearing into his rough jacket. His glasses were small, dark frames, almost non-reflective. And his eyes . . . If Peter's hard jade had been disturbing, Egon's frigid ice was even more so. He looked like he'd spent a decade in Nam, his face lean and hard from too many missed meals and too few good rests.  


"Three terror dogs, heading this way," the man informed Peter quietly. "We need to get back to camp. If we can take them around on Church, we've still got a chance of getting them out tonight." He didn't seem to notice Winston at all.  


Peter, on the other hand, was raking the Ghostbuster with a calculated glare. "Change of plan, Spengler," he hissed, as the growls of the dogs drew closer. "We got a buddy."  


Egon finally looked over, and Winston could see that the prescription of the physicist's glasses must have been a little off, because he squinted carefully in the darkness. The blond leaned forward, scrutinizing Winston like his latest mold experiment for a long moment before drawing back.  


"Then I suggest we retreat to fallback four," Egon whispered finally, tightening his grip on his firearm. It was like Peter's--a thrower, but not a thrower. Like a prototype that hadn't been abandoned when it should have.  


"Four it is, then," Peter agreed, gesturing with his own weapon for Winston to rise. "Come on, _Winston_ ," he purred, making sure the other man saw the threat in his eyes. "Let's take a walk."  


* * * * * * *  



	2. Chapter 2

Winston kept his mouth shut as they scuttled through what, moments ago, had been Lower Manhattan. Wall Street was in shambles, and he was vaguely surprised to be shoved roughly through the doorway of what used to be an upscale deli just off Broadway.  


"Sit down and shut it."  


Pete's grim command was backed up by a hard jab with his proton rifle. As he turned, Winston took a good look at his pack, noticing that it looked a whole lot lighter than Egon's original design.  


God damn! He wished he knew what the hell was going on!  


"Hey, Venkman!" A tall, hard-faced man came up, giving Winston an almost-friendly once-over. "We're almost ready to send that next group of people down the pipe. We just need–"  


"Not the place to talk about it, Gary," Pete cut in coldly. He glared at Winston for all of two seconds before grabbing the tall man's arm and leading him away. For all Gary's hale greeting, it was obvious he looked to Pete as the man in charge. And Pete obviously agreed. "Egon," he tossed over his shoulder, "keep an eye on our guest, would you?"  


Which left Winston with a man he knew as well as his own brothers--a man whose eyes were cold and tired ice; not at all the inquisitive and sensitive blue they used to be.  


Winston dropped to the ground to lean against the wall, his head in his hands. "What the hell is going on?"  


"A fair question," Egon remarked, his voice a little less precise, a little more jaded than Winston remembered. "Who are you?" Egon crouched beside his new prisoner, his rifle steady and pointed at Winston's chest. "And what could you have possibly said to piss Peter off so completely?"  


Winston snorted at that. "Pissing Pete off was never very hard, was it?" he asked by reflex.  


Egon's eyes narrowed as they met his. "I see. You know him, then?" he offered, disbelief set in every muscle of that too-hard face. "That seems unlikely, as Peter and I have been friends for nearly twenty years. Whoever he knows, I know."  


Winston nodded wearily at that. "Right. So you wouldn't know Ray Stantz either, then?"  


He tossed the question off in derision of the whole mad scene, so he was surprised when Egon paused.  


"Raymond Stantz?" the blond asked after a moment, settling back slightly without losing his aim at his prisoner's chest. "I remember the name. . ."  


"Think, man," Winston encouraged him quietly, his gaze roving over the blasted out room, watching the small band collected here. There were men and women, many with proton packs, most sporting at least a few scars of war. Some were still injured. Amazingly, some were only children, and that got Winston thinking about what Peter's lieutenant had said earlier about sending people "down the pipe." An underground railroad, maybe? It would be just like Pete to set something like that up.  


His lieutenant? Winston realized he'd dropped right back into military mode, when faced with the obviously battle-weary shadows of his friends. He snorted almost silently. Pete was _still_ the team leader. Even in Bizzaro World. Didn't that just figure?  


Egon was still trying to remember Ray, and Winston reached out carefully, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, Egon. He was at Columbia with you. You did research together. . ."  


Egon shook his head. "Not if it's the same Ray Stantz I remember," he countered, looking at Winston's comforting hand in almost-lethal irritation until the offense was removed. "He was a rather . . . odd young man, given to dangerous experiments into the occult." His hands firmed their grip on the rifle, and his eyes hardened once again. "If this Stantz is the man who sent you, perhaps Peter is correct in his apprehension."  


Shit. Egon didn't believe him either. Hell, why should he? As far as Winston could tell, these guys had barely even heard of Ray Stantz--never mind Winston Zeddemore. He gazed at Egon's hands, taking in a dozen scars that hadn't been there yesterday, his eyes wandering to the prominent slash that graced the physicist's neck. . .  


The world had suddenly gone upside down. Pete and Egon, but no Ray; proton rifles, but no Ghostbusters. . .  


"That's it. . ." Winston's whisper was too quiet for Egon to hear. "What I told that nurse--no Ghostbusters!"  


Egon had caught the end of his thought, though, and frowned. "Ghostbusters? What on earth is a Ghostbuster? Sounds like something Peter would come up with."  


"He did, buddy!" Winston sat forward slightly, freezing as Egon prodded him with his rifle. "Egon . . . man, what if I told you this wasn't supposed to happen?"  


"I'd say the entire eastern seaboard agrees with you," Egon replied dryly.  


"What if I told you that, in a different dimension, you and Pete and me--and Ray Stantz--we were teammates." He sighed wistfully. "Man, we were _brothers_."  


"I would say that could be remotely possible, given that there are an infinite number of dimensions, and therefore an infinite number of possible realities."  


Winston nodded at the professorial tone, so like his Egon. "Well, it's not just remotely possible, it's true. And in that reality, we beat Gozer's ass--together."  


Egon smiled grimly. " _That_ , on the other hand, seems most _un_ likely. Gozer is a demigod. A being that certainly couldn't be taken down by a few poorly armed mortal beings."  


Winston shook his head. God, to see _Egon_ saying it couldn't be done. . . . "We did it, Egon. We beat her. We crossed the streams and sent that bitch back to where she came from."  


At the mention of crossing the streams, Egon's eyes turned icy and he jammed his rifle right up into Winston's ribcage. "In the afterlife, when you meet that semi-deity that spawned you, tell her she was very good. Almost convincing."  


Winston ignored the sweat breaking out on his forehead. "What? What do you mean?"  


"But if she thinks we have lasted this long simply to be taken in by such a patently ludicrous scheme, she's very much mistaken." He shook his head at the shock in Winston's eyes. "Crossing the streams would be a boon for her, wouldn't it? We would decimate the entire island and remove her only real enemies in the bargain." The rifle tensed, and Winston saw Egon's finger tightening on the trigger. "We might not be able to bring your god down, demon, but we can certainly deprive her of one more stooge."  


"Egon, wait!" Winston raised his hands in hasty surrender. "I swear, man, that's what we did! This shit? It never happened! We were there when she broke through and we sealed up her gateway! We've been busting ghosts for the last decade, not fighting Gozer!"  


He closed his eyes. He was going to die at the hands of one of his dearest friends. A friend who didn't know him, who thought he was just one more evil being in a world full of evil. The proton pack hummed faintly on Egon's back, and Winston began to pray, knowing that God would hear him, even here.  


Apparently, He did. Egon's pack ceased its power-up, and Winston cracked an eyelid to see the blond looking down at him speculatively. When he spoke, his voice held the "distracted scientist" tone that Winston knew too well.  


"If we had managed to create these weapons before she arrived . . . It _is_ possible that crossing the streams could have sealed her back in her own dimension. Provided, of course, we knew she was coming in the first place."  


Winston nodded hastily. "That's exactly what we did, homeboy."  


Egon's nose wrinkled at the familiarity. He seemed to chew on the idea for a moment before turning his attention--and his rifle--back on Winston. "If this is, by some miracle, true, then what are you doing here?"  


Winston shook his head. "Damned if I know, my man. Last thing I remember was waiting in the hospital to find out if you and Pete were gonna make it. I went to get a cup of coffee, and bam!" He lifted his hands as if to say "here I am."  


"Spengler! Incoming!"  


Peter's sharp cry pulled Egon's attention away, and both of them looked up to see the psychologist heading toward them. The cold green of his eyes was cracked slightly by concern, and he put a hand on Egon's arm, pulling the other man to his feet.  


"Come on, Egon," he barked, watching the rest of the team ready themselves for battle. "The lovely Zuul is coming this way, and I don't think she's planning on asking us to tea."  


Winston stood up as well, looking around him. "Got an extra thrower?" he asked tightly, listening to the approaching sounds of chaos.  


"Thrower?" Peter asked, catching on quickly. "Oh, you think we're gonna give you a rifle now?" He shook his head. "Not likely."  


Egon intervened, much to Winston's surprise. "Peter, I think it might not be a bad idea for him to be armed."  


"Spengler!" Peter argued, one eye on the exit as his troops headed out, leaving the civilians safe in a far corner. "We don't know who the hell he is--or what he wants--and all of a sudden you want to give him a gun!?"  


A scream sounded from the street outside, and Winston headed toward the door, spying a proton pack in the shadows by the opening.  


"Look, Pete, what I _can_ explain, I'll do later, all right?" The pack _was_ lighter . . . And the thrower had only one setting. Felt right, though.  


"Egon, if this is a mistake, I'm gonna kill you," Peter muttered, stalking after Winston.  


"Duly noted, Peter," Egon replied.  


Winston hit the street, making for a position behind a burned out truck across the street. He hunkered down, watching Peter and Egon take positions near the corner. He could feel the energy building. Something big was coming, all right. Something big and very, very nasty.  


And suddenly the street was full of nether-beings and their prey. Trying to draw all the fire they could, a group of five soldiers made a rush across the street, hoping to keep the ghosts away from the civilians. Five terror dogs went after them, the rest of the ungodly horde heading for the café.  


Winston got off shots when he could, wishing for a trap or ten as the goopers just kept coming. Terror dogs, ghosts, minor demons, they were everywhere. The rifles this Egon had built had a different kick to them, but they provided just as much power, and Winston got the hang of it quickly, scaring off two of the dogs before they could start fighting over a soldier's body.  


"Egon!"  


Peter's shout caused Winston's stomach to churn, and he hunted for his erstwhile partners in the chaos. Peter was there, halfway down the street, hunched over Egon’s motionless body.  


"Shit." Reliving every bad bust they'd ever had, Winston darted out from behind the truck, trying to lay down cover fire.  


"Get him back, Pete!" he yelled, watching Venkman's head snap up in shock. "Jesus Christ, Pete, don't just stand there, _fall back!_ "  


Peter did, grabbing the taller man and throwing him over his shoulder. That blond ponytail slapped at his legs as Venkman ran back toward the café, leaving Winston and a handful of soldiers to hold the street.  


"Peter Venkman!"  


The demonic cry was enough to freeze Winston's blood, and he focused on the far end of the asphalt to find a tall, shapely woman calling for his friend.  


Shit. Dana.  


Or rather, Zuul. Her skin was coppery, glowing in an insane light, and her eyes shone red in the enveloping gloom. Winston shook his head. This was what would have happened if they hadn't stopped Gozer.  


This was what _did_ happen because he'd wished it all away.  


"Venkman!" she called again, sweet undertones in a voice like crushed glass. She waved a hand and her fellow minions disappeared, leaving a score of dead in their wake. Winston saw two other soldiers on the street with him. Just two.  


"Come out and meet your fate," Zuul cooed. "Gozer the Gozerian might be merciful. She might let me kill you quickly."  


"Oh yeah," came Pete's voice, sharp and hard with a current of pain running through it, "'cause you like it slow, don't you?"  


Winston darted a look at him as the squad leader exited the café, and what he saw stopped his heart. He could see it in Pete's eyes--a grief he'd seen shadows of before, every time one of the team was hurt, but never the full deal. If he was seeing it now, then Egon must be dead. A molten pain hit his chest and he struggled to control it.  


"Come on, bitch," Peter gritted viciously, facing her, his back to Winston. "Let's dance."  


His beam caught her high on one shoulder, and Dana Barrett's body shook with the impact. She simply grinned a feral grin and launched a stream of energy toward Peter, howling her fury when he dropped to one side and evaded it.  


Winston shook himself as Peter hit the ground and rolled, and stood tall, launching a proton stream of his own. "This is for Egon, you helldog!"  


Peter gave him one glance of shock before he joined in again. Another beam, further on in the rubble of the street, caught her from behind. Two more joined in from the sides, and Zuul writhed angrily, unable to summon the strength to retaliate. When she would have moved lower to evade them, Winston whipped his stream hard to the right then back again, and a lasso of protons cut her off.  


"All right! Come on, Venkman!" called the person behind that third stream. "Let's put this dog to sleep!"  


Winston almost cried in relief at the familiar Brooklyn accent.  


"You got it, Melnitz!" Peter barked back, a jolt of relief in his voice that Winston didn't try to identify. Peter reached behind him for a large, bulky device. Egon may have figured out how to make the packs smaller, Winston mused, but the traps were _huge!_  


"No! My Mistress will devour you all!" Zuul's cries became more panicked suddenly, as the trap landed heavily before her and snapped open. "You will all die!"  


Winston turned away from the bright light as Dana's body seemed to turn itself inside out with an inhuman shriek, the majority of it flying into the trap as the leftovers dropped wetly to the ground. Apparently, this Egon had created a trap that could disassemble a physical being, if not trap them outright. It definitely wasn't one of his tidier inventions.  


"Not before you do," he heard Peter whisper coldly.  


Peter was headed back into the building even before the trap snapped shut, and Winston joined the other soldiers who fell in behind him. The whispered words he heard as he entered made his heart lurch painfully.  


"Don't do this, Spengs? Huh? God damn it, you've taken everything that prehistoric bitch could throw at us. Why now?" Egon was lying flat in the corner, a young woman on one side of him, Peter on the other. Pete had a tight grip on Egon's hand, but the blond was lifeless.  


"Come on, Egon . . . don't. . ." Pete's words petered off into nothing as he knelt there, and Winston felt his own heart break a little. This was his reality now, and he couldn't deny the instinct to reach out to his teammate. He laid a hand carefully on Peter's shoulder.  


"Pete. . ."  


With a speed that shouldn't have surprised Winston at all, Peter laid him out flat with a right to the jaw. Winston looked up through tears of loss and pain, to see fury on the face of a man who had once been one of his closest friends.  


"This is _your_ fault, you son-of-a-bitch!" Peter railed through his tears. "If you hadn't come in here-- You led her here, didn't you!?" He reached down, grabbing Winston's jumpsuit and pulling the other man roughly to his feet. "You fucking bastard!" He raised his fist again.  


Only to be stopped by a small hand on his forearm. Peter jerked around to see Janine standing next to him, her face red. His energy deserted him all at once, and he let Winston go.  


"Peter," her voice was small, but determined, "he helped us stop her."  


"Probably so he could take her place!" Peter argued.  


Winston heard a familiar, helpless anger in his friend's voice, and he shared it. He'd brought this on all of them, somehow. And there was no way to fix it. No way to bring Egon back. . . .  


"He wants to get in good with Gozer, Janine, can't you see!?" Peter turned, his rifle aimed at Winston's chest. "If we don't take him out, he'll just bring us in as a couple of little trophies for his Mistress!"  


Janine shook her head, although Winston only saw it in the very edge of his vision. Egon took up the majority of his attention. His shirt was in tatters, a vicious wound slicing his stomach open. Through the ripped cloth, Winston could see the rest of the scar that marred Egon's neck. The thick rope snaked down to the top of his stomach, where it merged into the current wound. That first one probably should have killed him, whatever had happened there. Had something like that happened to Ray, too--maybe with no one like Peter there to save him? Was he gone? Ripped to pieces over some _stupid_ wish?  


"He didn't plan this, Peter," Janine was saying quietly.  


"Well, that's not going to do Egon any good if he dies, is it?"  


Pete's words were electric, and Winston felt his knees give out. "He's alive?" he asked softly, looking up at Janine in desperate hope from his new seat on the floor. "He's really alive?"  


"No thanks to you." Peter's words were hard, but the tone he used held a shade of doubt.  


"Look at him, Peter," Janine whispered. "It's like he thought he'd lost his best friend." Winston almost _felt_ Peter shake his head in denial, stilled suddenly by Janine’s soft, tender command: " _Look_ at him."  


Both men obeyed her. Winston didn't know what Peter saw in his eyes, but Peter's face screwed up in pain after a moment, and tortured words pushed their way through his grief. "Who _are_ you?"  


Winston took a deep breath. "I don't even know any more," he admitted, exhaustion coating his tones. "But you're right, man. This is all my fault."  


Peter's eyes hardened again. "What do you mean? Are you saying–?"  


Any accusation he might have made was cut off by a blast that blew the front window in, showering them all with fragments, though Winston barely felt the cuts that bloomed on his cheeks and forehead.  


"Underground! Now!" Peter barked the order quickly, kneeling beside Egon and gathering him gently into his arms. As he rose, he pegged Winston with a deadly glare. "Janine," he murmured coldly, "get his pack and keep a rifle on him. He's not going anywhere without us until I figure out what the hell is going on."  


If that was even possible. Winston sighed, matching Janine's dubious look as she trained her weapon on him and led him rapidly to a small doorway in the back of the room. Children, civilians, and blood-stained soldiers filed in without a word, heading for a set of stairs hidden behind an old refrigerator.  


"We'll hold it here as long as we can, Melnitz," one of the soldiers whispered as they shuffled by. Winston had seen the look before, and knew the man wouldn't live to see morning. At least he'd die knowing he saved a few.  


The trip down was long and silent, the darkness marred only by the sounds of shuffling feet. Winston could feel the heat of the muzzle of Janine's rifle at his back, but he wouldn't have made a move to escape anyway. Peter was somewhere ahead of him, and he could hear an endless round of pleas coming from him, begging Egon to hold on just a little longer.  


* * * * * * *  


It was nearly an hour later when they finally emerged in the subway tunnels and half of the party dropped in exhaustion. Winston stood still, however, and surveyed the scene. Peter had laid Egon out carefully to one side of the tracks, and the young woman Winston had seen before knelt over him, checking him out.  


"I was a medic," Winston volunteered quietly, watching Janine carefully. "I can help."  


She snorted, but ushered him forward, her rifle never wavering. "If he'll let you."  


Peter's stone cold eyes said he wouldn't. "Get the hell away from him," he ground out, watching the woman clean away too much blood. "Haven't you done enough?"  


 _Too much._ Winston sighed, sliding to the ground against the wall and pulling his knees up to meet his chest. He mulled over the revelation he'd had what seemed like months ago. This was his doing. He didn't know how, or why, but somehow, what he'd said in that hospital cafeteria had changed things. Without the Ghostbusters, Gozer had succeeded in breaking through to their world. From what Egon had said earlier, he hadn't even developed the proton packs until after she'd had a chance to dig in. If Egon died now. . . . It was his fault. But didn't that just mean he had to find a way to fix it?  


"Clean up."  


A nearly-clean square of cloth was thrust into his field of vision, and he looked up to see Janine's tired face. She smiled gently at his confusion. "You're bleeding all over the place."  


At a slight wave to her own face, he got the idea, and took the handkerchief, wiping at his cheeks and feeling the sting for the first time. He was bleeding, all right, but not as much as Egon was. He looked over at Peter, hunched in on himself while his hand desperately clasped Egon's.  


"Don't pull this shit on me, Spengler," Peter whispered. "I swear to God. . . ." His sigh was heartbreaking, and Winston felt tears join the blood on his face. "Egon, I can't do this alone."  


Winston yearned to reach out to him; to comfort him as he hadn't had the strength to comfort Ray before the world turned upside down. But this wasn't his Peter. This Peter had been through hell for the past eleven years, and it seemed he'd had only Egon to help him through it.  


"Please, Egon," Peter begged. "Come on. . ."  


Winston let his own tears take over as he let his head drop to his knees.  


* * * * * * *  



	3. Chapter 3

"Peter?"  


Winston must have slept, because Egon's soft voice pulled him out of darkness. He straightened up quickly, looking over at the corner and seeing Egon's hand move feebly toward Peter's hunched form. Once his hand touched Peter's arm, the younger man sprang awake as he _never_ did at home.  


"Egon! You're awake!" Winston watched Peter's callused hand brush the hair back from Egon's forehead. "How you feeling, big guy?"  


"Marginally worse than the day after your graduation party," Egon offered, his voice wisp-thin. "But better than the last time they caught me."  


Peter's laugh sputtered hopelessly in the darkness, and a part of Winston wanted to give them privacy, even as he watched, hungry for any sign of Egon's survival.  


"Yeah, well, you never could duck, could you?"  


Egon's voice went haughty. "I _did_ duck, Peter. See what happens when I listen to you?" His gaze roamed for a moment, settling on Winston's face. "You're still here?"  


Peter whipped around to see Winston watching them, and would have jumped to his feet without Egon's hand on his arm. "Enjoying the show?" Peter grated viciously.  


"Peter." That one word, Egon's tone and reprimand so familiar it hurt, caused Winston to close his eyes and ignore the tears. For all he was conscious, Egon knew he was dying. He was trying to cover it up, trying to save Peter the pain.  


"Egon, he as much as admitted that he set us up," Peter argued.  


"He said it was his fault, Peter," Janine put in quietly. "It's not the same thing and you know it."  


Winston turned to see her still standing guard at his side, her expression as resolute as her voice, though her eyes held the same knowledge that Egon's had.  


Egon ignored Peter's huffing attempt to refute her, and looked vaguely in Winston's direction. He still had his glasses, but Winston was sure now that he hadn't had a new set in at least a few years. And given the way his prescription changed every time he went to the doctor, he had to be mostly blind down here.  


"How did you get here?" Egon asked, his voice growing firmer. "You said things used to be different?"  


Winston blew out a frustrated breath. "I don't know what happened, Egon. Something-- Some kind of spell, maybe?" He ran a hand over his face, wincing at the cuts there. "If I'd only kept my mouth shut."  


Egon's eyes had closed during just that short speech, but he was obviously listening, because after a moment, he murmured, "If it's a spell, it can be undone, right?"  


Winston froze. He'd thought of that, briefly, but he had no idea how to go about it. If he could figure it out, Egon wouldn't have to die. Pete wouldn't have to be like this. "Damn, I wish Ray was here. He's forgotten more about spells than I'll ever know."  


"He's a warlock?" Egon asked the question seriously, but Peter's incredulous laugh cut off any answer. It had an edge of despair to it, to Winston's ears, and he realized that Egon didn't need to work so hard to spare his friend.  


"Come on, Spengs, now you want me to believe there are _witches_ , too?"  


Egon gave a fair approximation of his familiar dry grin, though his voice seemed to be going. "I was correct about the demons, was I not?"  


Peter sighed, squeezing the hand still in his. "Yeah, can't fault you there." He looked down to see Egon's eyes closed, and chafed his friend's face carefully, panic in his tone. "Yo, Egon. Stay with me here, okay?"  


Egon muttered something too low to be understood, and Peter let out a tearful groan. "Fine, Spengler, you sleep. Next time I try to nap, don't lecture, all right?"  


He watched his friend for a long minute, then looked up into Janine's eyes, already wet with tears. He snorted in anger and rose swiftly, heading out into the darkness. Winston almost moved to go after him, but Janine shook her head, her rifle now laid beside her.  


"Give him a minute," she whispered, moving to Winston's other side, so she could sit closer to Egon. "He won't go far. Probably wouldn't want to risk. . ."  


Wouldn't want to risk Egon dying while he was gone. Winston stood, trying hard to breathe, trying to think. If it _was_ a spell he had no idea how to go about finding Ray in this world. Hell, the kid might not even be alive, for all he knew. But if he _could_ find him, and he _could_ change things. . . .  


He looked around suddenly. "Where'd everybody go?" There had been more than a dozen people here when he fell asleep. He couldn't believe he hadn't heard them leave, but now there was only a small pile of supplies and what looked like an extra proton pack. Winston raised an eyebrow at his companion and gestured to the no doubt irreplaceable equipment.  


"I convinced Peter we might need it." The cold amusement in her voice told Winston exactly what Pete had thought of _that_ idea. "As for the rest of the group, he sent them on ahead," Janine told him, her voice hard now, as if she was trying to hold in her hurt. "He knew. . . . He knew we couldn't move Egon, but they're going to find that trapdoor eventually." She snorted. "He couldn't let them get everyone."  


But he could let them get him. Winston understood the concept only too well from his dealings with a slightly less unbalanced Peter Venkman. Moving Egon would have killed him, but by staying here, Peter was essentially assuring that they'd go together. Winston looked down at Janine's red hair and she sighed, seeming to sense his gaze.  


"I wasn't going to leave him to go through that alone."  


The emotion was right, but Winston's mind insisted that the focus was wrong. Janine and Peter were siblings--bratty, irritating sometimes, but brother and sister who would do anything for each other. Still, the world was so damn backward now, there was no reason this should be the same.  


"Janine, you and Pete--"  


"Shit!" Peter's curse was barely louder than his footfalls as he raced down the tunnel toward them. "Shit, shit, shit! Melnitz, get your motor running." He spared Winston a skeptical glance. "And fire him up, too. The more the merrier."  


Janine stood quickly, grabbing a pack and thrusting it at Winston. "What do we have? Fluffy?"  


Peter shook his head. "So much worse than that, babe." Winston jerked his head around, noticing a familiar glint in Peter's eye that threw him for a moment. "Who's your favorite munchkin?"  


Janine groaned. "Oh God, I hate that guy."  


"Who is it?" Winston asked, watching Peter head for Egon, who still lay silent by the tracks.  


Peter put on a credible game show host voice. "Vinz Clortho, Gozer's left hand man!" He snorted as he dropped to his knees beside his friend. "Too bad he looks like a stunted nerd." He tapped Egon's cheek lightly. "I think he's really going to be pissed that we trashed his girlfr–" He let out a faint sob, his hand searching the unscarred side of Egon's neck. "Oh fuck. _Egon. . ._ "  


Winston joined him on the floor, his hands too cold, suddenly, to try to reach for the physicist's neck. Egon looked peaceful. His face was relaxed, as if he'd fallen deep enough into sleep that the pain couldn't get to him. Winston's vision blurred and he heard Peter's breath catch once.  


"See you on the other side, Spengler."  


In this reality, the words didn't mean quite the same thing, but Winston heard the same fatalistic twang, and he raised tear-filled eyes to find a look of cold resolution on Peter's face.  


Janine, apparently, knew her Peter well enough that she didn't have to see it. "Peter, don't."  


The psychologist jumped to his feet, tightening the stomach strap on his pack. "She's toast, Melnitz," he vowed, his voice colder than Winston had ever heard it. "Doesn't matter what it takes, that chick is _toast_!"  


Janine tried to stop him, but he danced away from her, vengeance in his eyes. "Hey, Vinz! Come on, buddy! Time's a-wasting!"  


An inhuman howl rent the darkness, and Winston rose with a last look at his fallen comrade. He barely had a chance to draw even with Peter before the terror dogs were upon them.  


There were five of them--they seemed to run in packs that way. Janine got off a direct hit at one of them, and it dropped, shaking its head in confusion to find itself on the ground. Peter took down another just as it reached her, throwing it far down the tunnel with the same lasso maneuver Winston had used on Zuul earlier.  


"Hey, Winston!" Peter called, a fanatic zeal in his voice. "I like your trick!"  


The next dog took Peter to the floor, and he yelled in anger as he blasted it off. Winston spared him a look, but Peter bounced to his feet again in seconds. Winston wondered whether Peter would even feel the claws, as pumped on grief as he was right now.  


They both pulled closer to Janine, trying to protect her, but she gave as good as she got, taking another dog out of the running by burning huge furrows in its front legs. The last one received the brunt of three very angry mortals and ran screaming back the way it had come, stumbling into the walls as it tried to see through burned out eyes.  


"That's it, huh, Vinz?" Peter called loudly. "That's all you got? Come on out here, you undersized--"  


The suicidal insult was cut short by a blinding bolt of energy that drove Peter to his knees. Janine and Winston turned as one, weapons ready, and stopped dead at the sight of a dozen of the terror dogs moving in to surround them. Five, they could take, but with Peter out of the game, twelve were very much beyond them. Winston saw Janine's eyes go to Peter, heard her soft cry of relief as his chest moved up and down with his breath.  


Out of the darkness, a small man stepped forward, and at any other time, Winston would have laughed at the sight of Louis Tully trying to menace him. But this wasn't any other time, and that body hadn't been Louis Tully for more than ten years.  


"Gozer is expecting you," the man-demon hissed. "It isn't smart to keep her waiting."  


Winston shared a look with Janine, a look he'd shared with Peter and Ray and Egon in another life. If they were going out, they were taking some of these creeps with them.  


But heroic intentions to the contrary, fate had other ideas. Louis Tully's body raised its hands, and Winston heard his own scream mingle with Janine's as searing energy blasted through them both.  


Winston felt something sharp strike his head when he dropped, and as he lost his hold on consciousness, he could only hope he'd wake up somewhere far away from this nightmare.  


* * * * * * *  



	4. Chapter 4

". . . and then Gozer the Gozerian, the Defeator, the Devourer, and he, or she--it, really. Not a person, just a god. We're not gods, though, so, well, you see, that's what happens, you know? If you're not a god--"  


"Somebody want to shut him up before I shove a fist down his throat?"  


Winston shook his head and immediately cursed. Not one of his brighter ideas, although the sledgehammers in his skull seemed to like it. The voices continued as he hovered somewhere just beyond wakefulness.  


"I mean it, buddy. You don't shut up--"  


"Yeah, well, had a fist in my face--lots of them. Don't like them at all. I mean, in _my_ face." The voice was a little too high-pitched, a little too fast. And way too crazy. Winston tried to open his eyes and failed, and the voice continued, something about it niggling away at him.  


"In _your_ face, though . . . well, no. I don't think I'd like that very much either, because violence begets violence, you know? And you seem kind of violent. I mean, you seem violent. . ."  


"Melnitz, tell me they left me a pack?" Peter begged, his voice a little weak.  


Janine snorted, and Winston rose that much closer to consciousness. He couldn't quite remember where he was, but he knew it wasn't somewhere he wanted to be.  


"Think they put us in here with him just to drive us crazy?" Janine wondered. She sounded kind of rocky, herself. What was going on?  


"Worked for him, didn't it?"  


"Nothing works. See, that's the problem," the almost-familiar voice continued at that same crazed speed. "See, if something worked, then we could stop it, but we can't stop it, 'cause nothing works. No. No way to stop it. Tried. Tried for years and years. Didn't work. Nothing works. Wish I'd had more physics classes . . . that might have done it . . . If I just had a week and something to destabilize her with. . ."  


"Ask Egon," Winston whispered numbly, not quite operating yet. If only he could open his eyes, he was sure he'd figure this whole thing out.  


"Buddy, you there?"  


"No, Pete, I'm in Cabo. Course, I'm here." Finally! His eyes opened.  


To a stone ceiling.  


"Egon zap us into the Netherworld again?" Winston asked fuzzily. "You _know_ how much I hate that place." He tried to sit up, and the world went gray. Words rustled around him in the darkness, but he couldn't figure out their meaning: ". . . get over him . . . like he knows us. . ." "Netherworld? Never been there, or maybe here's there? Anyway, if here's not there, then I've never been there. . ." "I think he hit his head when they dragged us away. . ." "He hit his head before he met us, you ask me. . ." "They hit your head? No . . . No, _you_ hit your head. Why'd you do that? Must have hurt--did it hurt? Must have. . ."  


Winston grimaced, his mouth connecting the voice to a name, even if his mind hadn't quite caught up to him yet. "Ray, shut up, man. I'm trying to sleep."  


Dead silence.  


It was so total and so abrupt that Winston had to open his eyes and find out what had caused it. The guys never shut up when you asked them to, they just weren't like that.  


What he saw when his eyelids parted was enough to bring his aching brain back online. Peter and Janine looked down at him, grief warring with an untried concern in their faces. Concern, and a little shock. Ray's expression was _all_ shock . . . What there was that was still recognizable. Just the sight of it pushed Winston up on his elbows.  


Ray . . . hadn't had an easy time of it in this reality. He weighed possibly half what Winston's Ray did, and the left side of his face was more scar tissue than skin, the burns that decorated it making their way down into the neck of his filthy, tattered sweatshirt. The right side was more recognizable, though the fact that his jaw had obviously been broken badly at one time or another had given him a strange, lopsided grin that sported few teeth.  


The sweatshirt had long since donated its sleeves to some higher cause, and the spindly arms that stuck out of it were scarred with what looked like thousands of long, deep, impossibly thin cuts, as if someone had taken an imprecise scalpel to them. His hair was brutally chopped, short and spiky but in a wild style Ray would never have chosen in saner times. His chin and right cheek showed a few patches of gray-shot red beard; the small scars that dotted the skin spoke of a razor more akin to stone than metal.  


But it was his eyes that made Winston's own tear. Those eyes that were always so full of life and intelligence and hope. . . Madness had burned them out, leaving bloodshot amber orbs that glowed with another fire altogether.  


_Oh God, first Egon, and now. . ._  


Winston tried to stop it, but Ray's name came out in a sob. Absurdly, this seemed to please the younger man immeasurably.  


"You know me?" he asked gleefully, clapping his hands. "You know me! See, I told you _somebody_ would know me, didn't I?" he asked the air. "If somebody didn't know me, I wouldn't be me, would I?" He looked at Winston too seriously. "I _am_ me, right?"  


Peter ignored him, prompting Winston to sigh in memory. Peter never ignored Ray. It just didn't happen.  


"So, Winston," Peter drawled, green eyes pegging his subject with wary interest, "this is the famous Ray Stantz, I take it?"  


"Stantz! That's the name!"  


Ray's yell got Pete's attention, and he glared at the younger man in irritation, directing his words to Winston. "You wanna tell me how Eg–" He closed his eyes and chose another phrase. "How _we_ were supposed to know this guy?"  


Ray looked at him with new fascination for a moment, before his expression crumpled in mock misery. "Fine way you treat _your_ friends!"  


Peter turned on him, his voice rough and frozen, although Winston had seen the fire of grief in his eyes. "I am _not_ your friend."  


Before he could witness more of a scene he never wanted to see, Winston grabbed Pete's arm. "Listen for a minute. This is gonna take some explaining."  


Peter grinned dangerously and glanced around the rubble-strewn cell. "I don't think I'm going anywhere until Gozer gets horny, bud. Talk away."  


Winston grimaced at the turn of phrase, and took a deep breath. "Eleven years ago, Gozer the Gozerian tried to break through a dimensional rift on Central Park West."  


"Old news," Ray crowed. "Old news, old news. Tried to stop her . . . him . . . it. . ." He shrugged diffidently, his addled mind skating quickly off into its own world again.  


Ray tried? Was that why he was here? Winston shelved that topic for later discussion. The longer this took him, the more likely he was to be killed (by Peter _or_ Gozer) before he finished it.  


"Thing is," Winston continued carefully, "I remember Gozer being stopped."  


Peter snorted. "By you, me, the reject from Gozer's nut parade, and. . ."  


Winston nodded apologetically at the younger man's stricken sigh. "And Egon, yeah." He smiled at Janine's curious look. "You were there too, Janine. We were a team. This kind of thing was our job."  


"Our job, huh?" Peter shook his head. "This kind of thing happen to us a lot?"  


"Not the god thing, but, yeah--ghosts, demons." He sighed. "We were Ghostbusters. We went around helping people get rid of . . . 'other earthly' problems."  


"Ghostbusters. . ." Peter mused. "Catchy." He leaned forward, his gaze almost too intense, grief for Egon still too close to the surface. "So, why am I here? More importantly, why isn't Egon?" He softened slightly as Janine rested a hand on his shoulder and squeezed in comfort. Pete could use it.  


 _Damn_ , Winston thought sadly, _I could sure as hell use a Ray-sized hug myself, right about now._  


"Come on, Zeddemore," Peter asked in a gentler voice, stumbling over the name as he read it off of Winston's jumpsuit. "Egon seemed to think you were on the level." That Egon would never think anything like that again was tearing Peter up inside, leaving stark white lines around his mouth and red rims around his eyes.  


Winston pushed himself back against the wall and ran a hand over his face, trying to block out the image of Egon's body by the tracks. "Look, man, I didn't realize what was going on until it was too late! I just. . ." He cradled his head in his hands. "I was tired of it all."  


Peter nodded sagely, anger boiling beneath the surface. "You just got tired of . . . 'ghostbusting' one day and figured 'hey, think I'll just call that a wash and start over.' That it?"  


Winston groaned. "Man, it wasn't like that at all! You and Egon were in the hospital--again." He gazed through Peter's sad expression, remembering the bust that had landed him in this hell. "It was bad. Not as bad as it has been. . ." And not as bad as it was now. His eyes focused suddenly, falling on Ray, who had taken to drawing small bunnies in the dirt. "Ray and I were waiting for word. Sometimes it seems like all we ever do, you know? Half of us sit in a room waiting for doctors while the other half gets treated." He blew out his breath furiously. "Look, I just went to get a cup of coffee, and I was talking to this nurse. I said something like 'sometimes I wish they'd never started this damn business.'"  


"Well, that was stupid." Ray's quiet comment drew an involuntary chuckle from Peter, but the redhead's tone was deadly serious. "You should never make wishes, Winston. Can I call you Winston? It's your name, so I think you'd know it, right? Wishes are. . ." He looked over into the corner suddenly, his voice going singsong. "Once, in the fourteenth century, there was this guy who, uh, wished that the world was only cats. Cats?" he asked the corner. "Cats, or dogs? Anyway, he wished there weren't any people. So this demon heard him and she made it so there weren't any people--even him. He was a dog or a cat or . . . maybe he was a mouse." He looked around. "There's lots of mice here. They eat the food . . . or they _are_ the food--something. . ." His gaze darted back to Winston and stayed there, a glimpse of sanity in its depths. "The point is that wishes aren't ever what you want them to be, you know? This guy wished the world was full of cats, but it didn't mean he wanted to be one, right?"  


Winston leaned forward, taking advantage of that brief clarity. "Ray, you said you tried to stop Gozer."  


Ray nodded violently, his whole wasted frame shaking.  


"How?"  


"Well, see, I thought maybe I could use something to will him back--you know, a simple charm, a spell . . . something. See, spells--" His face screwed up suddenly in what seemed to be remembered pain. "I tried spells in college. 'Cause they acted like they liked me if I did. See, they didn't _really_ like me, but they acted like it, and if an actor's good enough, they can win the Oscar." He looked up at Peter for some reason. "They still have the Oscars, you know? In California? I don't know why Gozer doesn't just go there." He deflated. "New York used to be so pretty. . ."  


Peter's life until Gozer hadn't been quite as different as Winston thought, because the younger man leaned forward and placed a hand on Ray's arm; a gentle hand that caused the madness to retreat just a little. His tone pure, caring psychologist, Peter asked softly, "What about trying to stop Gozer, Ray?"  


Ray smiled for a brief second before his expression went abstract. "See, I figured that I could . . . summon something, you know, something that could fight her--like Gouron and Godzilla, you know?"  


Winston broke in, rather than hear a demented monologue on the wonders of monster movies. "So you raised a demon?" Boy, didn't this just get better and better?  


"Tried," Ray offered apologetically. "Figured something big, but . . . See, the dimensional gate? Gozer's gate? Too big. It was way too big and everything else just kind of stayed closed when I tried it--I couldn't do it again. So I tried closing Gozer's gate, instead of opening another one, and. . ." One hand gestured vaguely as he began to rock back and forth. "Gozer . . . she didn't like that much. Trying to close its gate. So he sent. . ." His voice trailed off as his eyes grew huge.  


Winston's hand joined Peter's on Ray's arm, trying to still the rocking. "Ray? Man, it's okay. We're here."  


"Dogs. . ." Ray whispered finally. "Demon dogs? You know, they don't . . . um, they don't always attack with their claws out--or, not all the way out, anyway. Little tiny claws. Puppy claws. . ." He started shaking. "Little tiny puppy claws." Tortured, bloodshot eyes met Winston's in terror as Ray's scarred arms both wrapped around his middle.  


"I wish there was a world without dogs, Winston."  


* * * * * * *  



	5. Chapter 5

It took nearly an hour to get Ray to calm down and sleep, and Winston was shaking himself by the time it was done.  


"I couldn't do it again," Ray had said. Meaning he'd done it before. For all the knowledge that Ray--Winston's Ray--had about the occult, he'd never been able to do that.  


No, Winston corrected himself coldly. It wasn't that he _couldn't_ , it was that he knew he _shouldn't_. Raising creatures like that had to reap some kind of hellish karmic backlash, didn't it?  


Winston found himself wondering suddenly if it was Gozer who made Ray lose it, or the demon that came before her. The younger man slept fitfully, tossing his head and grimacing in pain--whether past or present, Winston couldn't tell. Was this really what Ray would have come to, if he hadn't teamed up with Pete and Egon? Was this even Winston's world at all, or just an alternate dimension--a might-have-been that _was_ , at least somewhere in the universe?  


Nursing the headache his drop in the subway had spawned, Winston sat silent guard over his charge, his aching head jerking up at the least sound around him. Life was too damn funny sometimes, he mused, looking around again. It had taken him a long time to figure out why this place was halfway familiar. Gozer had one hell of a sense of urban renewal, and she hadn't left any building in prime condition, from the look of it. What he'd taken as rough-hewn rock upon awakening was in fact the crumbling cement ceiling of the jail cell he and the guys had shared after Walter Peck blew the containment, all those years ago.  


Yep, too damned funny.  


"Hey, I do have some experience standing guard, you know." Peter dropped to a cross-legged seat next to him, looking fully as exhausted as Winston felt. "You can try to get some sleep. With that whack you took, you need it."  


Winston shook his head mutely, heart aching at the way Peter's eyes kept seeming to roam--not looking for Gozer, or any threat, in fact. Just looking for the friend who had always been at his side. There had to be a way out of this. For Peter, for Ray . . . He sighed. It was already too late for Egon. Hell, maybe he was fooling himself, maybe it was too late for all of them.  


Peter was watching him carefully now, a sad look in his eyes that wasn't quite all for Egon. "He meant a lot to you," he ventured, gesturing to Ray's sleeping form, "on whatever planet you come from?"  


Peter's light comment gained him a smile at least, and the psychologist obviously took it as encouragement. "Let me guess: You always wanted a little brother?"  


Winston shook his head, grinning ruefully. "Already got two, actually." He snorted hopelessly, tears welling up again. "Hell, counting you and Egon, I got a handful of 'em."  


Peter sobered immediately and Winston could have kicked himself. "Pete," he began carefully.  


"Egon, huh?" Peter whispered, sinking deep into twenty years of memory. "Your _little_ brother?"  


"Not in height, that's for damn sure," Winston agreed quietly. "But we were gonna race each other to fifty."  


"Dear God, why?" Peter asked, looking over at Janine, who stood at the mouth of the broken down cell, keeping an eye out like the old pro she'd been forced to become here. Winston wasn't sure how knowing Gozer was coming for them was going to help, since they had nothing to fight her with. But Peter seemed to need to keep some kind of military procedure going. "Man, I don't even want to see forty!"  


"Then you're a couple of years too late, aren't ya?" Winston quipped, glad, for just one moment, to feel like Peter really knew him. The moment passed as a stranger's cautious gaze raked him once for measure.  


"So," Peter said, moving to lean against the wall, giving them both a little breathing space, "how do we tell Clarence we want Christmas back?"  


"I think we wait for Ray," Winston offered, unsettled by his own decision.  


Peter considered the sad heap sleeping beside them. "You think he really knows what he's talking about?" He sniffed diffidently. "I mean, he's pretty far gone."  


Winston nodded, reaching out to brush at a stubborn lock of hair on Ray's forehead. "He told me once that magic was more dangerous than Ghostbusting. Said magic had a sort of . . . evil to it--even white magic." He sighed deeply, trying to tamp down the longing in his heart. The world wasn't going to change again without help, and wishing it would was what landed them all in this hell in the first place.  


"Guess he's living proof, huh?" Peter asked quietly. "And magic aside, after this many years of Gozer as a host, I don't know how much of him is left, you know?"  


"He's probably still the smartest kid I know," Winston confessed. The chuckle took him by surprise. "Imagine, calling him a kid. He's nearly forty . . . Always acted like a kid, though."  


"You mean annoying, or stupid?" The question held a hardness that Winston's Peter wouldn't have been capable of. Of course, Egon had had a chance to soften Peter up before Ray met him in college.  


"You two were brothers, Pete," he whispered sadly. "You'd've done anything for this annoying, stupid kid."  


Peter's gaze softened suddenly, as Ray let out a moan in his sleep. "Yeah, well. . ." He stiffened his resolve, grief and that self-destructive glint returning to his eyes. "I had a brother. He wasn't half that annoying." He sucked in a painful breath. "And he sure as hell wasn't stupid."  


Yeah. Pete had had a brother, and Winston railed against his own stupidity, cursing himself for making Peter have to live without that support. He shook his head in anger. Loose lips sink ships, Zed. . .  


"Winston?"  


He looked up, stunned to see the kind of understanding in Peter's eyes that he would have expected in his own reality.  


"If we can fix this, we will," Peter vowed. "If we can't. . .?" He shrugged, an expressive movement that assured Winston that Peter wouldn't outlive his best friend for long. "Guess nobody'll be racing to fifty, huh?" He waited for Winston's unwilling snort of laughter before going on. "You didn't know this was going to happen, buddy. You were sick of watching your friends being slapped around on a daily basis." His gaze darkened, softening suddenly as his gaze fell on Janine again. "Believe me, I know what that's like." He gave a despairing little laugh. "Think I can just wish for a world _with_ Ghostbusters, and it'll magically appear?"  


Winston chuckled weakly, exhaustion pulling at him. "With your luck, you'd get a world with ghosts who bust humans. We did that once, man. Never again."  


Peter chuckled faintly himself before the reality of the situation caught up to him again. "Hey, Winston?"  


This was driving him crazy. He hadn't heard Pete use his given name so many times in the last year! He sighed, trying hard to stay awake. "Pete, pretend you never heard 'Winston,' okay? You've always called me Zed." A yawn chased the sigh. "My LT in Nam called me Zed, and he was just like you. It's comforting."  


"He was just like me?" Peter asked glibly, trying to cover his pain with sarcasm--just like always. "Dashing, brilliant, and a master tactician?"  


"No," Winston deadpanned, so willing to play the game that it hurt, "he was a vain, pain-in-the-ass blowhard. What's your question?"  


Peter grinned sadly. "Egon?" The name was wistful and Winston heard the tears behind it. "In your reality, did he ever get to be that big-time professor he always wanted to be?"  


It took a moment to decide how to answer that. "By the time you guys got kicked out of Columbia, he didn't want it anymore, Pete." Because he had something so much better.  


"Kicked out of Columbia. . .?" Peter shook his head in amazement. "He was up for tenure when the uber-bitch showed up."  


Winston nodded. "Part of the change in reality, probably. If you guys hadn't been kicked out, you'd never have tried to start the Ghostbusters in the first place." He looked down at the sleeper beside them. "And I think if Ray hadn't met you guys, he might have turned out a little like this, anyway. Not as crazy, maybe, but just as alone."  


They both watched the younger man tense up in his sleep, the nightmare--some nightmare other than the one he was living--taking a firmer hold on him.  


Peter's voice was quiet with regret, negating his former anger. "I lucked out when I met Egon, but I suppose I could've used a _little_ brother, too."  


Winston ran a hand over Ray's hair again, watching the younger man twitch painfully in his sleep. When was the last time Ray had had anyone care for him? If Winston read this right, Ray had been imprisoned by Gozer--tortured--for eleven years. But before that. . .? Ray's life before he met Egon and Peter hadn't been a picnic.  


"Ray was lucky to find a big brother like you, Pete." Winston chuckled at his companion's incredulity. "Seriously. His parents died when he was a little kid and he got shunted off to this farm in upstate New Jersey; kind of a labor camp for foster kids." Ray whimpered a moment, then fell silent. "You and Egon were the first people to tell him he mattered."  


"Don't know why the kid would care what I thought, but Egon was always good at that," Peter finally offered simply. With a slightly teary sigh he pulled himself to his feet. "Get some sleep, Zed, okay?" He gestured to Janine, by the door. "Melnitz and I can keep an eye out."  


Winston nodded and scooted over to the wall, bringing his knees up in what had recently become his favorite position for sleeping. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, but he didn't honestly think he'd sleep. He didn't see how he could, with images of Egon and the rest of those dead soldiers merging with too many memories of Vietnam behind his eyelids.  


He tried to concentrate on blocking out the visions, and his hearing seemed to become that much sharper.  


"Peter?" Janine, low and gentle. "Are you okay?"  


A snort that signaled tears. "Compared to. . .?" Peter's quiet weeping was almost enough to open Winston's eyes, but he denied the impulse, giving the two of them the illusion of privacy, at least. "God, Janine . . . I hope this guy's on the level, because I don't know how I'm going to do this alone."  


"You're not alone, Peter," she whispered.  


Winston fancied he heard what might have been Janine kissing Peter's hair. Peter obviously did feel something more than friendship for her, as his voice warmed. "I know, babe, I just . . . don't know how to do this without him. This one over here talks like we're all one big happy family in his world, but I've only ever had Egon to watch my back." His voice brightened for a second. "And you."  


There was a sad smile in Janine's voice. "I guess I'll just have to watch it twice as hard. I guess it's not _too_ bad to look at."  


Winston stifled a snort at that, his mind drifting. Yeah, Egon had always watched Pete's back. Not that he didn't cover everybody, but Winston wondered just what it was about those two that made you need to say their names together. He used to think Egon should have been tighter with Ray than with Peter . . . But hell, Egon was a paradox all around, wasn't he? Smarter than Einstein, but with a vicious sense of humor--a combination that made every prank one of epic proportions. Winston had finally decided that Peter and Egon fit together so well mostly because they were equally childish, even if Egon hid it better.  


And even if that wasn't the way this Pete and Egon worked, the fact remained that their friendship was gone forever. All for a slip of Winston's tongue, in front of a wish-granting demon.  


His mind slowed down as he began to drift off, the sounds of Peter and Janine talking even more muted in his ears. To be fair, the practical part of his mind reminded him, it wasn't like he'd known it was a demon. Hell, it wasn't as if he'd really meant it to begin with. . .  


Ray was right. Wishes weren't ever what you wanted them to be. But that didn't stop Winston from wishing this whole thing was just a bad dream.  


* * * * * * *  


He woke to the same nightmare with a jolt a few hours later, his gaze darting to the cell door to see Janine standing quietly against the bars. She nodded at him, pointing to Peter, who lay sprawled against the opposite wall.  


"I just got him to sleep about an hour ago," she whispered. "Don't wake him, for God's sake."  


Winston smiled, stretching muscles to the breaking point as he rose and headed toward her. "Woe betide the man who stands between sleep and Peter Venkman," he intoned, as if reading from an ancient tablet.  


She grinned, but her eyes still held too many shadows.  


"What about you?" Winston asked, looking down the empty corridor beyond the bars. "You need sleep, too."  


She didn't even shrug, and Winston logged the look in her eyes with long practice. He'd known guys in Nam who didn't even feel the exhaustion when they were in the middle of a crisis. That he had to see that insomnia in Janine's eyes hurt more than he'd thought it would.  


He shrugged for her, his gaze returning to the hallway. "At least Pete's getting a few winks," he offered after a moment.  


"Didn't figure I was going to get him to calm down enough to sleep, you know?" She sighed, sliding down to the floor and folding her legs under her. "He and Egon . . . You don't get it, probably, but they were . . . a unit. In the best sense of the word. Not that they couldn't work with other partners, they were just. . ."  


"So much better together?" Winston offered, the knife that still cut his heart heard all too clearly in his voice. He'd picked a hell of a way to fix reality to his liking, hadn't he?  


Janine looked up at him silently for a moment. "Maybe you do know, at that." There was a loose thread on her jacket, and she fiddled with it absently. "I really liked Egon," she admitted quietly. "I mean, I only joined the squad a year ago, after. . ."  


He just gazed at her, giving her permission to talk or keep silent, whichever she could handle best.  


"My husband and I were part of another team," she began slowly. "Him and Egon and a few of the other brains from Columbia and MIT worked out those protonic rifles about a year after the bitch showed up. They had the chance to make a bunch of them at a few of the higher-end colleges before Gozer blew them all to hell." She snorted, not the light, mock-cynical snort of Winston's Janine, but a harder one, built of eleven years under a demigod's thumb. "There used to be almost a dozen small resistance bands, here on the island alone." She sighed, an old grief joining the current pain already in her eyes. "Ours went last year, courtesy of Zuul. Guess we can kiss the founding crew goodbye, too, huh?"  


"Egon started the resistance?" Winston guessed.  


She smiled, that glimmer in her eyes. "Not him. Peter. He kind of took over the rifle production and started his own regiments. Said the town wasn't big enough for two gods, and he meant to come out on top."  


That sounded right. Pete might act like he was out for number one, but it was all act. "Hell, boy always was a better hero than he wanted to be."  


She shook her head. "I'm not sure how much of a hero he'll be now." At Winston's questioning look, she continued. "He never had any family to lose, you know? His mom died when he was still in college–"  


"What about Charlie?" Winston asked, realizing he hadn't even thought about his own parents in this reality. The fact that they, and his brothers and sister were probably dead was just one more shock to an already numb heart. Still, he thought wistfully, maybe Malcolm and Church were out there somewhere, slinging protons side by side with his dad. Hell, Clare would have made a great Ghostbuster in her own right.  


"Charlie?" she asked. "You mean his dad?" She shrugged when he nodded. "I don't know. Peter's dad was somewhere in Europe--he thought--when Gozer came through. I think he just hopes the guy took a look at what was happening and stayed the hell away." A single tear ran down her face. "Wish my family could have." She straightened up, clearing her throat quietly. "Anyway, Peter had Egon. That's really all he had, I think. With him gone. . .?"  


Winston shook his head. "Pete's stronger than you think. Stronger than he thinks, too. Losing Egon . . . It's hard, girl, but he'll be there when we need him." He smiled gently at the glint in her eyes, remembering the same in Peter's when they'd talked before. "And he hasn't lost everything, you know."  


She accepted his knowledge with a grin, and gazed at him critically for a moment while he struggled to control the sorrow that Egon's death still stirred in him. "So, Peter had a whole lot of family where you come from, huh?" she asked gently.  


Winston smiled suddenly. "Not just us guys, either, Janine." She gave him a raised eyebrow, and he felt a chuckle break loose. "You had a few more siblings," he elaborated, sobering suddenly as his gaze tracked across the floor to Ray's twitching form. "God willing, you will again."  


Her gaze followed his, and she stood, nodding him over to the younger man as she resumed her guard duty. Ray was almost thrashing now, caught in another nightmare, worse than the one Winston had seen before his own troubled sleep. He knelt beside the scruffy shadow of his friend, putting a careful hand on his shoulder and shaking gently.  


"Ray?" The only response he got was a weak moan. He firmed his grip and called again. "Wake up, Ray. It's just a nightmare." As was everything here. Waking, sleeping . . . didn't seem to matter much. "Come on, buddy."  


Whether it was his words or simply the end of the nightmare, Ray's eyes popped open, barely seeing Winston's face before he ripped away from the caring grip to scuttle into the corner, more wounded animal than man. Winston reined in his dismay, and reached out slowly.  


"Hey, come on, Ray. It's Winston, remember?" Ray shook his head violently, but allowed Winston to edge closer. "The wish guy," he offered, hoping for _something_. "Remember?"  


"Stupid," Ray whispered finally. "Stupid, stupid, stupid." He met Winston's eyes and shook his head again. "Demons like Larcata just wait for stupid people and their stupid wishes. Should've known better, you know? Ghostbuster like you. Should've known not to say anything."  


Winston froze at the strange look of knowledge in those crazy eyes. "Ray? How do you know the Ghostbusters?"  


"It was different." Ray's voice rose slightly, and he stared at Winston with a fierce intensity, his head cocked to one side while he tried to reason things out. "Used to. . ." His eyes began to cloud over with madness again, and Winston's heart sank. For a second there, Ray was remembering the way the world _really_ was. "If wishes were horses then beggars would ride. . ." Ray leaned forward, drawing absently in the dust. "We had horses on the farm, you know. Big dappled grays . . . spots and dots and. . ."  


In despair, Winston's hand dropped and his gaze followed, fixing on the image Ray drew. A complex knot, it struck a cord, and Winston slid up to Ray's side, looking at it from that perspective. "I know that," he whispered. "That was on the nurse's necklace . . . Ray? What's that symbol?"  


"Larcata." Ray's irritation was sharp and he waved Winston away from him. "I told you. I told you and told you and did you listen?" He shook his head. "Never listens. . ."  


Winston turned away for a moment, watching Peter jerk awake at the noise of their conversation. The battered soldier rubbed a hand across his face before fixing his gaze on Winston. Whatever he saw in the other man's eyes was enough to make him slide over to them and survey Ray's handiwork. Winston nodded once to himself, and spoke to Ray in a quiet, careful tone.  


"Ray, is there any way to stop Larcata? Any way to make him undo his wish?"  


"Not him. Her." Ray nodded to himself. "Definitely a her, not a him. Gods, they're her and him and it and stuff, but Larcata's a her."  


Peter slid around to face Ray, and Winston looked up to see Janine head toward them, standing over Peter. She was holding her breath the same way Winston himself was.  


"Ray?" Peter asked gently. "How can we make Larcata take her wish back?"  


Ray shook head. "Can't. Can't." He looked up at them all, and sat back a little, a small, pleased grin on his face, as if he welcomed the audience. "Have to kill her, wouldn't you?" he asked Winston. "Have to trash her. Untie the knot."  


Janine exhaled. "Untie the knot?" she asked, looking down at the symbol that had started it all. "You mean slag her necklace?"  


Ray nodded violently. "Well, if it was a necklace. Or a brooch, or a bracelet, or a ring, or a tattoo, or– No, not a tattoo. What good would that be?" He slid back into his delusions, sagging back against the wall as he muttered to himself, tracing imaginary symbols on the tatters of what had once been jeans.  


Winston watched the pity in Peter's eyes, waiting for the green gaze to harden in resolve and sighing gratefully when it finally did. The psychologist rose fluidly, looking into every corner of the room, looking for something to aid them.  


"We gotta get out of here," Peter told him quietly. "If you're not completely insane--and I'm not saying you're not--then if we find this bitch, toast her. . ." He sighed painfully. "This is all going to be one hell of a bad dream."  


"Find the bitch, find the bitch, make your pitch and find the bitch."  


Peter whirled around at Ray's mad singsong, dropping to his knees again and grabbing the young madman's hands. "Ray, what does that mean? What do you mean, make your pitch?"  


Ray shrank back in terror, and Peter let him go, speaking soothingly. "It's okay, Ray," he promised, sounding so like Winston's own Peter that tears sprang to the Ghostbuster's eyes. "It's okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." Ray calmed, looking up into those green eyes with something akin to interest. "What do you mean we have to make our pitch?"  


"Not us, stupid," Ray replied, laughing madly. He threw out a hand, his fingers shaking as they found Winston. "Him. His wish, his miss, his bitch, his pitch."  


Winston shuddered at the crazy chant, but tried to smile encouragingly. "How do I do that, Ray?"  


Ray's face screwed up in concentration. "You . . . call her. Tell her. . ." He groaned at his lack of memory. "Tell her. . ." One hand slammed into the wall beside him in frustration. "She has to think you want to change. No. No, the world wants to change . . . You need to save the world?" he ventured finally, looking to Winston for confirmation.  


"Great. Now you're Superman, Zed."  


Peter's flippant words caused Ray to squeal with delight. "Superman! Winston's Superman!" Just as suddenly, he was rocking with worry again, and Winston's heart broke a little more at the sight. "Larcata, Larcata, come and make me Superman. Larcata, Larcata, come and make me Superman!" As he sang, he rocked. "Don't let the world be like I made it, let the world be like it was. Larcata, Larcata, come and make me Superman."  


Winston dashed tears from his eyes as Ray fell silent again. Just call her? Would that really work?  


"Larcata!" his voice cracked. "Larcata! I need to talk to you."  


* * * * * * *  



	6. Chapter 6

"Winston," Janine whispered, a quelling hand on his arm. "Did you think about the fact that we don't have shit to stop her with?"  


Winston's fists balled angrily. "I'll stop her with my bare hands, girl. I don't need a proton pack to disassemble her."  


Ray shook his head. "Stupid, stupid. . ."  


"Larcata!"  


Winston's furious bellow was enough. Out of the darkness came a figure. Not unlike the nurse Winston had seen in the hospital, the demon was still different in her native form. While human in size and shape, her face was pitted, and Winston dimly recalled catching a glimpse of it before the world went mad.  


"Honey," Peter whispered, "you have _got_ to find a better line of skincare products."  


Larcata glared at him for a long moment as he met her ire with seeming indifference.  


"Way to go, Pete," Winston gritted. "Pissing demons off wherever you go."  


Peter shrugged, and the utter hardness in his stance was so unlike the blithe cockiness of Winston's Peter. "I've made it a hobby, Zed. Not much else to do around here, you know?" The fatalism in his gaze did nothing to calm his companions, and Winston could see that Janine knew, as well as he did, that Peter had truly given up caring about whether he survived any of this.  


"Why do you call me, Zeddemore?" Larcata's voice was deeper than the nurse's had been, more full of malice. "Do you not like the world you have created?"  


Winston shook his head. "I'm supposed to?"  


The demon smiled--a sight Winston could definitely have done without. "You wished for this world, Winston Zeddemore. Do not blame me if it is not what you expected." She looked around, her gaze fixing on Ray, who stared back at her as he shook, his own gaze unreadable. "Had I known it would be so exhilarating, I would have granted a hundred wishes you and your other Ghostbusters have made over the years."  


"I didn't ask for _this_!" Winston growled hopelessly, his expansive gesture taking in the ruined cell, his broken crew. "I just hated seeing the guys hurt. I hated feeling like we were always going up against brick walls. I--"  


"Spare me your whining, mortal," Larcata purred. "It is my task to grant your wish, nothing further."  


Ray drew himself up, still shaking, and the demon turned to him, smiling at the defiance in his glare.  


"And you, little man," she whispered, drawing closer to him, backing him into a corner. "My fellow demons have talked of you. Of your delusions of power."  


Winston watched something break in Ray's eyes, a shard of sanity shining forth. "Should send you back to where you came from," he growled.  


"But you can't, can you, little man?" she asked coolly. "After so many years under Gozer's thumb, you can hardly work up the strength to face me." She leaned in close. "Any more than you could face my brother, Roton."  


"But I didn't summon _you_!" Ray cried, stark anger in his voice.  


Peter tried to lean in and grab his arm, but Ray threw him off with more strength than his wasted muscles should have had.  


"Didn't _summon_ you! You can't be here!" He advanced, and she watched him come, a mixture of amusement and irritation on her face as she moved into the center of the room.  


Winston reached out, grabbing Ray more roughly than Peter had, but the younger man shook his head stubbornly, walking forward as Winston felt an invisible hand suddenly hold him back. He looked at Larcata in shock, shivering at the smile on her face. She was too like a cat waiting for the mouse to come close enough to play with. Once Ray reached her, she even allowed him to slam an indignant fist against her chest. It was followed by other blows, as Ray raved. "I summoned Roton and I sent him back! I can do the same to you--like it never happened!"  


Winston threw a helpless look at Peter, who seemed likewise bound, and at Janine, who had somehow managed to slip behind Larcata as Ray advanced. She wasn't stopped by the compulsion that held the two men frozen, and she stood lightly on the balls of her feet, waiting for the right moment to make her move.  


She waited a moment too long.  


Larcata finally grew tired of Ray's rantings, and the grin on her face, as she grabbed him roughly by the throat and raised his head so she could meet his eyes, was more evil than anything Winston had seen in all his years as a Ghostbuster.  


"Little man," she whispered cruelly, tightening her grip until his eyes bulged, "you bore me. Roton was surprised by your strength, you know? What a pity I shall have to tell him how wrong he was."  


With that, she threw Ray bodily across the room, forcing Peter and Winston's bodies to turn, so that they could see the blood that blossomed across his cheek as his head slammed into the wall. He fell boneless, his eyes wide and glassy, and Winston was unsurprised to hear Peter's shout of anger merge with his own.  


Janine didn't yell; she didn't have to. She launched herself at the demon's back, slamming into Larcata hard enough to drive the surprised demon to her knees. Before either of them had a chance to recover, Janine had ripped the chain from the demon's neck, throwing the necklace to Peter, who, freed of his paralysis by the surprise attack, snatched it from the air.  


Freed from his own compulsion, Winston instinctively ran for Ray, easing him flat on the ground as the sounds of struggle behind him faded from his concentration. Laid out, Ray blinked once, his eyes almost clear as he looked into Winston's face. The look of death that Winston had seen in Egon's eyes was there as well, and the Ghostbuster cursed quietly at the sight.  


"Be Superman, Winston," Ray murmured, his voice little more than a gentle breeze. "Untie the knot." His hand found Winston's and gripped it fiercely as his eyes suddenly shifted to those familiar amber orbs that held Winston's Ray in their depths. "See you on the other side, Winston," Ray whispered, his voice cracking as he convulsed in sudden pain. "Send her back . . . Take the wish. . ."  


"Janine!"  


Peter's anguished cry brought Winston's head up for a moment, and when he looked back, the light was gone from Ray's eyes. With a sob, Winston reached out and closed his friend's eyes. He could feel the anger boiling as he rose and turned, taking in the fight behind him.  


Peter had Larcata's pendant as he crouched off to one side. Janine lay still--dead or unconscious--by the bars of their cell, and Larcata was advancing quickly on the man who held her wish in his hand.  


"Trash it, Pete!" Winston grated, letting the anger lend him strength as he launched himself at the demon. She met him boldly, a fist darting out to catch him in the jaw. Stunned, he fell to the side, landing close enough to Janine's crumpled form to at least see her breathing. Relieved on that account, he struggled to rise, watching Larcata stride toward Peter again, murder in her eyes.  


Peter raised a chunk of concrete, letting it hover over the silver necklace as he met Larcata's eyes. She snorted. And Winston prayed. This had to work. It had to end--not with Peter joining Egon and Ray in death, not with Janine left alone again, him trapped in this hell of a reality. . .  


 _Make the world be like it was,_ he prayed silently. _Make the world be like it was._  


"You cannot," Larcata murmured, a shade of con-woman in her voice. "How do you know life will be better there? Has he not told you all the hardships, all the pain?"  


Peter shrugged, his eyes holding too much loss as he gazed at Janine's limp body. "I'll take it, long as I have people I can trust."  


"Your friend," she tried again, a touch of desperation in her voice now, "your Egon? You will lose him there as well, you know?" She flung an arm out to gesture to the fallen woman. "Even your Janine is not safe there."  


"Then I'm no worse off there than I am here, right?" His gaze locked with Winston's briefly, and Winston silently urged him on. _Do it, Pete,_ he whispered mentally. _It's better, man, I swear it._ Peter nodded, as if he had heard every word, then let his gaze slide over to Janine's unconscious form before finally settling on the body of Ray Stantz. "If it's like this, I'm still alone, still in hell, still fucked." His smile chilled Winston's soul. "But even then, I'd take it over this place. At least it'll be different. And it might just be a damn sight better."  


An unearthly shriek filled the room as he slammed the concrete into the silver knot, and Winston's world exploded into darkness.  


* * * * * * *  


". . . sometimes, I wish they'd never started the damn business," Winston said, sipping at his coffee. "Wish I'd never gotten involved."  


"Done."  


He looked up at the nurse across the table from him in surprise. She seemed a little surprised herself.  


"Nah, I don't really mean that," he admitted, his gaze returning to his coffee. "I just . . . I can't stand these waits, you know?" He looked up at her, still seeing that shock on her face. "Hey, you all right?"  


"Winston!"  


He broke off his perusal of her as Ray bounced into the cafeteria. "Peter's okay!" That was enough to put all thoughts of strange nurses and their stranger moods out of his mind as he followed Ray back toward the waiting room, leaving the nurse gaping angrily after him. "He's going to have to stay overnight, but it's just another concussion." The engineer sighed. "When I saw him hit the ground, I thought. . ."  


Winston nodded. He'd thought the same, himself. Nobody who hit that hard should come away with his skull intact. "I know, homeboy, but he's got the hardest head in New York."  


"Thank God!" Ray whispered fervently.  


"What about Egon?" He knew Egon's injuries were serious. The blood was a dead giveaway.  


Ray blew out his breath as he collapsed into the sofa in the waiting room. "They said he'll be okay in a few days. They're, um, still sewing him up, but he only has to stay for a day or so, until they're sure he's got a high enough fluid level. Whatever that means." He looked at Winston and grinned. "Why can't doctors speak English?"  


Winston clapped him on the shoulder. "I could say the same for engineers and physicists, my man."  


Ray slapped his arm in reprimand before suddenly falling back against the cushions, his eyes closing as he let go of his worries. "I'm glad that's over."  


"For now," Winston cautioned.  


His companion nodded grimly. "You know, sometimes I wish–"  


Something made Winston slap a hand over Ray's mouth, preventing him from finishing the sentence. "Don't do it," he heard himself whisper, strange anxieties running through his veins.  


"Trust me, Ray, wishing doesn't help."  


* * * * * * *  
The End  



End file.
